Saturday, July 25, 2009

Rafael Nadal Biography - Four Consecutive French Open Wins

By Larry Kidman

Rafael Nadal Parera, nicknamed "Rafa" has taken the tennis world by storm during the past five years. He has fast made his way through the professional tennis circuit and has had a phenomenal streak of wins. This Rafael Nadal biography, takes a very brief look at just what this young man has managed to accomplish in such a short space of time.

Rafa is now ranked as the second best singles tennis player world-wide. He has had sixty consecutive tennis wins on the clay-courts and as winning streaks go, this is quite remarkable.

Rafa was born in the town of Manacor on the Island of Mallorca, on the 3rd June 1986. He is no newcomer to sporting achievement as his family has another well known sporting personality in its midst. His uncle was a professional football player for FC Barcelona for many years and he was only 15 when he turned professional.

What is interesting about Rafael Nadal is that like his uncle he was only 15 years of age when he won his first ATP match. This took place in Majorca and he won against Ramon Delgado. This feat made him the 9th player of the "Open" era to win in an ATP match before he was 16. Only a year later he was the 2nd youngest ranked singles player to feature in the top 100 tennis players in the world.

Making a debut at Wimbledon aged 16 years in 2003, he managed to reach the 3rd round. No tennis player since Boris Becker had done this. His meteoric rise to fame continued and by 2005 saw him ranked the 5th best tennis singles player, making him the youngest player to make it into the top ten since Andrei Medvedev.

He is perhaps best known for being the winner of the French Open on four consecutive occasions. Pete Sampras won the US Open aged 19 and Rafa was the first teenager to achieve this again. He is also the arch opponent of Roger Federer, fourth youngest Roland Garros champion, as well as the 7th player in the history of the Grand Slam era to win one of these competitions on their first appearance.

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